Life Beyond Noma

By

J. S. Marcus

Updated April 27, 2012 10:07 a.m. ET

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New potatoes with warm green strawberries and arugula emulsion from Relæ.
Jorgensen Photography

A few years ago, when the attention of the food world was about to shift north to Scandinavia, a presiding wunderkind at Copenhagen's Noma restaurant was kitchen sous chef Christian Puglisi. In 2009, Mr. Puglisi, now 29 years old, decided to leave Noma, along with Kim Rossen, a young waiter and chef, and the two made plans to open their own restaurant.

The result, called Relæ, opened in August 2010 in Copenhagen's funky Nørrebro district, and was followed last year by Manfreds og Vin, a neighboring wine bar featuring natural wines. Relæ showcases Mr. Puglisi's eclectic culinary mind-set—the result of a Sicilian father, a Norwegian mother, a Danish adolescence and a stint working at Spain's El Bulli restaurant—and the partners' preference for small wine producers.

Although the new eateries share Noma's emphasis on local produce (carrots are a mainstay at both, just as they are at Noma), neither, stresses Mr. Puglisi, should be described as "Nordic," the cuisine now associated with Noma chef René Redzepi, whose relentless investigation into the foodstuffs of Scandinavia, characterized by foraging through forests and beaches for ingredients, have arguably made him the most celebrated chef of this young decade.

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Smoked salmon at the Willows Inn
Jim Henkens

"When we opened up, we acted like teenagers," says Mr. Puglisi, speaking this spring in a small test kitchen near his two restaurants, alluding to an effort to break out from under Noma's long shadow. "So we said, 'No foraging at all.' " He wanted to avoid "the obvious" comparison, so he applied an axiom he had learned from Mr. Redzepi. "To be original," says Mr. Puglisi, "you need to cook from within." This spring, Mr. Puglisi's pan-European instincts were vindicated, when Relæ—which highlights imported Noma no-nos like olive oil—won its first Michelin star.

From the west side of Copenhagen to the West Coast of America, former Noma chefs are making culinary headlines. Taking what they have learned from Mr. Redzepi, and often applying that knowledge to very different conditions or goals, these chefs are finding that there is life after Noma. In the process, the original restaurant has become not just the world's best—according to the influential "50 World's Best Restaurants" list, compiled by the U.K.'s Restaurant magazine—but a unique finishing school, training what seem destined to be several of tomorrow's most important gastronomic talents.

Noma alumni who have gone on to create their own successful restaurants include Blaine Wetzel, a Noma chef de partie who runs a locally sourced restaurant on Lummi Island, two hours north of Seattle, and Noma sous chef Jesper Kirketerp, whose new Copenhagen eatery Restaurant Radio offers an accessible bistro-like riff on Noma's cerebral approach.

The Joy of Cooking

Other Noma alumni are Claus Henriksen, head chef of the restaurant at Dragsholm Slot, a baroque castle an hour from Copenhagen; and Søren Ledet, a partner at Geranium, an upscale Copenhagen practitioner of Nordic cuisine, which also won its first Michelin star this year.

The trend is now in full export mode. Earlier this year, Mads Refslund, a head chef at Noma in its early days, relaunched a onetime Cajun restaurant in lower Manhattan called Acme as a New York outpost of Nordic cuisine. Later this year, Oliver Croucher-Stephens, a young Noma chef de partie who grew up on the Isle of Wight, will return home to the south English coast and prepare to relaunch the fine dining room of the island's Priory Bay Hotel. And Noma's own current star import, American-born head chef Matthew Orlando—whose CV includes stints at the U.K.'s the Fat Duck and New York's Per Se and Le Bernardin—is looking ahead to the day when he will open his own restaurant in Copenhagen.

"I love it," says Mr. Redzepi, Noma's 34-year-old co-founder, co-owner and guiding spirit, speaking this spring about his ability to send out accomplished chefs into the world. "The ultimate pleasure is to have a former worker succeed."

In spite of the joy it gives him, however, employee ambition can mean a higher turnover. "When you have these potential megastars—who are really extraordinary food thinkers—you want them to stay until they die," he says. Attracting—but then losing—talent is "a double-edged sword."

Noma—now in its ninth year—is considered a locavore restaurant, but in fact it sources food all over Scandinavia, from Iceland to the north of Norway. The use of unusual tastes, like pine, and the banishment of more familiar tastes like citrus, can make a meal there an intellectual adventure—Mr. Redzepi's larger goal is to translate the history and geography of an inhospitable region into something transcendentally edible. All this means that Noma is long on ideas but short on comfort food. Many Noma alumni are trying to reverse that.

A signature dish at the Willows Inn—an isolated, century-old hostelry, whose tiny restaurant was taken over by Blaine Wetzel in fall 2010—is ordinary smoked salmon, served fresh from the smokehouse behind the kitchen, and with nothing but a warm towel. "You eat it with your fingers," says Mr. Wetzel, who turned 26 this year, adding that the dish's freshness extends to the green alderwood used for smoking.

Mr. Wetzel's tenure at Noma meant leaving behind a girlfriend back in Washington. They were reunited when he returned home after finding ideal conditions at the inn, whose isolated position on a fertile island meant that suppliers were already in place.

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Kim Rossen at Relæ
Jorgensen Photography

The inn makes its own salt and runs its own farms. "We slaughter chickens four times a year," says Mr. Wetzel, which leads to the restaurant stocking up on stock. "There are times when we're making chicken stock six days a week."

Lower prices and familiar flavors are the bywords at Radio, which opened last fall just west of Copenhagen's historic center. Like Noma, the restaurant features bread made from wheat grown on Öland, an island off Sweden's Baltic coast, but Radio serves it with butter mixed with slowly caramelized onions—a homier touch. The restaurant includes ingredients associated with Noma, like local ramson and pickled elderberries, but the result is simple and satisfying, rather than overtly ambitious or amazing. A recent dinner included a creamy dish made of barley, Danish hay cheese, lumpfish caviar and dill—a Nordic twist on risotto.

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Pickled mackerel, cauliflower and lemon purée
Jorgensen Photography

"Our idea was that there should be space for everyone," says Mr. Kirketerp, the 32-year-old former Noma sous chef, who shares cooking duties with his co-owner, Danish chef Rasmus Kliim. Radio reverses Noma's complicated approach—and accompanying sky-high prices. These days, a meal at Noma is 1500 Danish kroner (€202); at Radio, you can get a three-course dinner for 300 kroner (€40).

"We do comfort food," he says. "We can pleasure a lot of people," while some diners—even if they could afford it—"just won't understand" what Noma is trying to do. That said, he admits, "I would eat at Noma every day" but "it's quite hard to get a table."

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